Polio Synthesis Essay: The Polio Vaccine

The story, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot starts off with Rebecca Skloot’s narration, of the first time she had heard of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks had cervical cancer but technically died of uremic poisoning. When she was treated with radium, they took a sample of her cells and sent it to a scientist by the name of George Gey. Gey wanted to find cells that didn’t stop multiplying even after they were out of the body, and Henrietta’s cancer cells were the 1st known cells in history to fit that description. After Gey found out about Henrietta’s immortal cells, he sent them to scientists all over the world. Jonas Salk used Henrietta’s cells to find the cure for polio. Meanwhile Henrietta’s children didn’t know about any of this, mostly because almost everyone thought that the HeLa cell line stood for Helen Lanes.

The National institute of Health, Rebecca Skloot, and John Hopkins Hospital have distorted Henrietta Lacks Legacy. In 1951, the Johns Hopkins Hospital took cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks, and developed the HeLa cell line. Neither Henrietta nor her family gave the hospital permission to use her cells at the time. Her cells contributed to major medical discoveries, including the development of polio vaccine. Henrietta’s family was never compensated for the money that they made off of her cells. It was not until 1973 that her children discovered, by accident, that their mother's cells, now immortalized, had become a major boon to medicine and that many people had become rich from marketing them. Ron Henrietta’s

In the novel The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, whose suffering changed the course of medical research is told through the eyes of the Lacks family. Skloot explains the story told to her by the Lacks family after much convincing that Thirty year old Henrietta Lacks was desperately looking for help in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for what she found and called a "knot" on her cervix. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and treated with radium and x-ray therapy. In the process, some of the tissue was removed from her tumor and sent down to George Gey 's lab at Hopkins to be cultured, or grown, in test tubes. Gey was the head of the tissue culture department at Hopkins and he 'd been trying for years to get cells to divide infinitely in the lab so that the scientific community could have an infinite supply of human cells to experiment on. Neither Henrietta nor any of her family members knew about the tissue sample—and neither Gey nor Hopkins ever informed them. They didn 't inform them even after the cells began to grow amazingly fast and Gey and the rest of the scientific world realized they 'd just made a gigantic breakthrough in medical technology. Eventually, the never ending reproducing cells was used to create the polio vaccine, yet no recognition was ever given to Henrietta. Skloot presents the idea of the medical and scientific hospitals being tainted and manipulated by

Her family would later find out Henrietta was misdiagnosed. Henrietta went to John Hopkins for treatment due to it being the only hospital in her area who would treat African Americans. Many doctors during this time would use the public for research without the patient’s consent, and this happened to Henrietta. Without Henrietta’s permissions, a doctor treating Henrietta’s tumor proceeded to take tissue from her cancer tumors and her healthy cervical tissue. Her tissue ended up in Gey’s lab which were named HeLa. Two days later Henrietta’s cells began growing, and soon after Gey began giving samples of HeLa to his closest colleagues (Skloot 41). Henrietta never knew of her cells growing in the lab. Unfortunately, Henrietta’s cancer began to spread throughout her body. Treatment was not working for Henrietta, and she passed away October 4th, 1951 (Skloot 86). No one knew who Henrietta was for a long time, and she lost a lot of time of receiving credit for her cells. Henrietta’s cells ended up being sold for a profit by a manufacturer. Her family did not receive anything from Henrietta’s cells being used. Henrietta’s cells helped changed the medical world. Her cells were used for creating a polio vaccine and IVF. They also helped understand HPV, HIV, and AIDs. Henrietta’s cells have done a lot for cancer research. However, Henrietta’s family suffered deeply after her death, and

These cells have been crucial in scientific discoveries such as in vitro fertilization and development of the polio vaccine. Despite Lacks’s extensive contributions to the medical world, she is rarely credited for being the source of these amazing cells. Lacks’s family didn’t find out until many years after her death that HeLa cells were becoming an extreme source of wealth for many scientific researchers. Henrietta’s family resented the fact that they were unaware of and not rewarded for the work being done with Henrietta's cells and tried to avoid all researchers that tried to contact them about their mother, including Rebecca Skloot. Rebecca had to gain the trust and friendship of Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter, before she was able to collect any information about Henrietta’s life

Sonny (Henrietta’s son) stated, “…the other day President Clinton said the polio vaccine is one of the most important things that happened in the twentieth century, and her (Henrietta’s) cells involves with that too.”

Dr. George Gey decides that he wants to do an autopsy on Henrietta once she passes away, he explains to Day, husband of Henrietta, that they "wanted to run tests that might help his children one day" (89-90). Scientists discover many vaccines using Henrietta's cells, but the Lackses cannot receive health insurance, " If our mother is so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?"(168). The family of the woman who's cells help save millions of lives cannot receive health insurance, proves that Henrietta and her family are viewed as an abstraction to the scientific community. Scientists and the media are making millions of dollars off of HeLa cells, and not once do they help Henrietta's family come out of poverty. "She's the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty" (168).

This article explains how Henrietta Lacks’ cells (HeLa) were essential in developing the polio vaccine and were used for other scientific milestones, such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilisation. The cells were also the first to travel to space in order to see effects of zero gravity. The source also mentions how Henrietta’s family were not aware of the experimentation on her cells for twenty

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a nonfiction book about Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman living in the 1920’s-1950’s. When she was thirty, doctors diagnosed Henrietta with cervical cancer. Doctors at John’s Hopkins took her cells without her permission and used these cells to create the first and most widely used cell line, named HeLa after Henrietta’s initials. Soon after the doctors took Henrietta’s cells, she died from her vicious cervical cancer, however her cells lived on in the hands of scientists around the world. Since then, her cells have been mass produced and used to test the polio vaccine, research cancer, AIDS, radiation, and human longevity, and develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, and hemophilia. Henrietta’s family did not know anything about the HeLa cell line until twenty-five years after Henrietta’s death, and even after HeLa cells created a multimillion-dollar industry, Henrietta’s family never received compensation. Even now, Henrietta remains widely unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book like a timeline going first her biography, then her childhood to her tragic death; the story of her family over various decades; Skloot’s research and her relationship with the Lacks family, especially Deborah; and the story of the HeLa cells. Tells an interesting story of a clash between race, ethics, and medicine; about a daughter overwhelm with questions about the mother she never knew. Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951 and they became one of the most important tools in medicine. They were essential for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. A doctor

The doctors were uncooperative with the Lacks family, the did not fully particularize the procedure that she underwent or the effect it would have on her. Furthermore, the healthcare professionals went drastically further in violations of her rights by taking a sample of her cancer without her permission numerous on numerous accounts. This is unacceptable practices conducted by the doctors. On the other hand, these cells became the groundwork for scientists to excel, luxuriating in breakthroughs achieved. The “Hela cells” contributed a variety of science fields from a vaccine for the polio virus, cloning, and gene mapping all comes through the use of her cells. Decades after her death the cells are still being used, her accomplishments in the field were relatively unknown till a student wrote this book. Henrietta Lacks never received the recognition for her helps in the achievement of the advancement of science, however, for a feat of this size one should receive glorification. For a student to have gone out of her way for someone they barely know, above all is unbelievably heart warming. This book shows us the unethical way that doctors practiced, but it turned out to better humanity, then left to examine this struggle to generate their own presupposition. The cells taken from her, furthermore, her family never received financial support. Consequently, this should not bother anyone at

Henrietta was bleeding abnormally. Her husband took her to John Hopkins hospital. Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer, but they had never seen something like hers. Sadly, Henrietta died but John Hopkins Hospital discovered her cells multiplied twice, every 24 hours. Medicine has changed forever ever since her mortal cells were discovered. Her cells were sent out to different places around the U.S Europe, Asia, and India. Her cells helped develop the polio vaccines, they were able to run many neutralization tests on her cells. For 30 years they had been in search of cells that lived outside of the human body, and they had finally made it. Scientists were able to clone her cells. The cells helped them gain information on how viruses attacked human cells. Her cells were also used to see how steroids worked for chemotherapy and tuberculosis. They were so amazed by her cells that they thought they had found the cure to cancer. Her family found out about their mother’s cells in 1976 when her story was published in a Rolling Stone magazine with her real name. HELA is the name they gave her cells short for Henrietta Lacks. HELA cells became very efficient for many different uses in all. Today, HELA cells have saved many people

In the novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, scientists steal cancerous cells from a middle aged black woman named Henrietta Lacks without her consent. She soon passed away and her cells were then put in culture and, unlike any other cells previously, succeeded in growing and reproducing outside of the body. This new breakthrough led to a scientific revolution that changed the world as we know it. The cells, called HeLa, were mass produced in factories and distributed all around the world. They allowed scientists to conduct studies and experiments that were impossible before; consequently, numerous new discoveries and cures were made and polio was eradicated. However, Henrietta’s family had no idea what her cells did

My Pappy, Gene, grew up poor. He was the third of twelve children. They lived in a two room farm house with no electricity. In 1953, he his five siblings and their very pregnant mother waited in line by the local church. The line wrapped the church and went down the block. Everyone in town with young children were waiting for the new polio vaccine. Up until this time polio was the most widespread communicable diseases among children in the United States. In the year before the vaccine was released nearly 60,000 children were infected with polio (Beaubien , 2013.) Thousands were left paralyzed and more than 3,000 died (Beaubien, 2013.) Hospitals had set up iron lung units to keep children with polio alive. My pappy, remembers several of his friends contracting polio. His favorite childhood friend was confined to a wheelchair and later died, he was eight years old. This vaccine was seen as a medical miracle. Without it is likely that my pap and several of his siblings may have contracted polio. It is likely then that they would have been left paralyzed, some may have died. My pap may then have never met my Nanny, and I would not have been born. The polio vaccine was able to be produced thanks to the rapid growth of human HeLa cells (Beaubien , 2013.) These amazing cells, took from Henrietta Lacks without her knowing, have become a medical revolution responsible for countless medical breakthroughs. I owe a lot to Mrs. Henrietta Lacks and never knew it.

The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.